One Nation is enforcing strict centralised control and new rules on its party branches and candidates. The man overseeing the strategy is a marketing and technology industry executive who dabbled briefly in drones.
Drones in the African Battlespaces
C/O Futures Book ReviewLisa J. Campbell22 May 2026Addressing in their book an increasingly prescient topic, the co-editors of Drones in the African Battlespaces, have a background of research in security policy, defense, and global arms concerns. Wayne Stephen Coetzee, a senior lecturer in Political Science at the International Programme in Politics and Economics at the University West in Sweden, has focused his research on security politics, emphasizing the interactions between public and priva
How Cartels are Adopting Drone Tactics from Ukraine
This article explores how FPV drone tactics, foreign volunteer forces, and transnational criminal networks reshape global security.
An Attack on Tech Freedom, an Assault on Dissent
We live in a world of surveillance states, militarized police, and crackdowns on dissent. Meanwhile, corporate behemoths will often ally with the state to shut down dissident speech or aid and abet surveillance. In this context, it’s important for independent groups to develop and maintain encrypted communications platforms and independent web hosting. But the Trump...
State Capacity of Secret Surveillance
The state capacity-civil society tradeoff model tends to treat the “state” and “civil society” as separate entities who move to constrain one another. However, this modeling technique leaves out the nuances of individual action within a collective setting by treating each as a relative black box. This article explores this balance in the context of the surveillance state that has arisen in the 20th and 21st century. As state capacity in surveillance increases it better allows the state to respond to threats to citizens from citizens. However, the increased capacity also lessens the ability of societal pressure to check authoritarian advances even in a nation with a thriving civil society presence.
State Capacity of Secret Surveillance
The state capacity-civil society tradeoff model tends to treat the “state” and “civil society” as separate entities who move to constrain one another. However, this modeling technique leaves out the nuances of individual action within a collective setting by treating each as a relative black box. This article explores this balance in the context of the surveillance state that has arisen in the 20th and 21st century. As state capacity in surveillance increases it better allows the state to respond to threats to citizens from citizens. However, the increased capacity also lessens the ability of societal pressure to check authoritarian advances even in a nation with a thriving civil society presence.
From Democracies to Autocracies: How AI Systems Enable Authoritarianism by Design
AI-enabled authoritarianism is not confined to autocracies. In this paper, we provide greater transparency by investigating and mapping the lifecycles of six AI systems deployed in different political regimes, ranging from the US to China. By drawing on an extensive range of sources (academic publications, investigative research reports, third-party evaluations, media interviews, government procurement notices), we conduct a systematic, qualitative comparison across systems to identify the critical technical and operational features that enable authoritarianism within their respective political contexts. We find that enabling features include the centralization and co-optation of administrative data for law enforcement and political punishment, regulatory gaps that fail to deter misuse, weak user compliance that nullifies human oversight mechanisms, and the encoding of protected group traits that identify members of vulnerable populations. We find that these features are present across systems deployed in autocratic and democratic regimes, albeit in varying configurations. We also find that both centralized and fragmented AI systems can contribute to authoritarianism by exploiting governance gaps: centralized systems directed by executive authorities, particularly within security and military institutions, are often not subjected to formal oversight mechanisms, while fragmented systems diffuse accountability between stakeholders, paving the way for entrenchment. These findings reveal that AI-enabled authoritarianism is distributed, resulting from design and operational choices made by developers, administrators, and users alike. We conclude with recommendations for developers and policymakers to mitigate these risks.
From Democracies to Autocracies: How AI Systems Enable Authoritarianism by Design
AI-enabled authoritarianism is not confined to autocracies. In this paper, we provide greater transparency by investigating and mapping the lifecycles of six AI systems deployed in different political regimes, ranging from the US to China. By drawing on an extensive range of sources (academic publications, investigative research reports, third-party evaluations, media interviews, government procurement notices), we conduct a systematic, qualitative comparison across systems to identify the critical technical and operational features that enable authoritarianism within their respective political contexts. We find that enabling features include the centralization and co-optation of administrative data for law enforcement and political punishment, regulatory gaps that fail to deter misuse, weak user compliance that nullifies human oversight mechanisms, and the encoding of protected group traits that identify members of vulnerable populations. We find that these features are present across systems deployed in autocratic and democratic regimes, albeit in varying configurations. We also find that both centralized and fragmented AI systems can contribute to authoritarianism by exploiting governance gaps: centralized systems directed by executive authorities, particularly within security and military institutions, are often not subjected to formal oversight mechanisms, while fragmented systems diffuse accountability between stakeholders, paving the way for entrenchment. These findings reveal that AI-enabled authoritarianism is distributed, resulting from design and operational choices made by developers, administrators, and users alike. We conclude with recommendations for developers and policymakers to mitigate these risks.
Protocol: How Control Exists after Decentralization by …
How Control Exists after Decentralization by Galloway, …
Palantir's social media manifesto is a blueprint for technofascism
The surveillance firm’s viral X post calls for hard power, conscription and the end of pluralism. AI expert and academic Mark Coeckelbergh on what happens when technology becomes the gateway to authoritarianism
The Authoritarian Stack: Mapping Big Tech’s Capture of State Power - Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung
A new project exposes the infrastructure of techno-oligarchic control — and why Europe must act
By Stephen Sims
For centuries, holding vast territory has been the basis of state security. Drones and AI are about to make it a vulnerability.
A Tale of Two Theories (of Coordination)
Leveraging and Deleveraging Toward Thick Sovereignty
Binding Chaos: Mass Collaboration on a Global Scale
The world is long overdue for a completely new system of governance. If there was ever a need for political representation or a paternalistic and opaque authority, it has been removed by technology. Every political system we have tried has proven incapable of protecting human rights and dignity. Every political system we have tried has devolved into oligarchy. To effect the change we require immediately, to give individuals control and responsibility, to bring regional systems under regional governance, allow global collaboration and protect the heritage of future generations, we need a new political model.
Above the law: Drones, aerial vision and the law of armed conflict – a socio-technical approach
Shiri Krebs is Professor of Law and ARC DECRA Fellow, Deakin University, Geel
Pluralistic: Surveillance is inequality’s stabilizer (26 Jun 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
The "dictator's dilemma" pits a dictator's desire to create social stability by censoring public communications in order to prevent the spread of anti-regime messages with the dictator's need to know whether powerful elites are becoming restless and plotting a coup:
THE DEGRADATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND FREE PRESS THROUGH THE PEGASUS SOFTWARE IN THE ERA OF SURVEILLANCE, AS A THREAT TO INTERNATIONAL SECURITY. A DEBATE OF CIVIL LIBERTIES AND CENSORSHIP
The evolution of cyber spying technology presents new and rising dangers; coupled with the easy justification for use of the on-going terrorist crisis these dangers have now become major threats to the international security system. This article aims to provide analysis of these threats, using the new software Pegasus as a focal point of discussion. Developed by the Israeli ‘cyber-warfare’ company ‘NSO’, this spyware signals a danger not only to security but freedom of the press and journalistic integrity. This paper’s focus will centre on how this software is used for censorship rather than to combat terrorism and will examine the social and political ramifications of said use. As highlight, the case of UAE activist Ahmed Mansoor and his contemporaries who were writing against authoritarian governments will be discussed. This article will urge that strict global legislation is needed to stop the abuse of spyware as a tool of censorship.